Long story short, young guy picked up this car 4+ years ago. Within a month engine killed itself (not sure why, in the past I have seen waste-gates fail, cars overboost to 28 lbs or whatever no wastegate control gets you, and engines throw a rod out the side of the block). PO decides to buy a fully built motor from the US and install himself.. finds he has no time, brings it to a shop in Edmonton, they have it for over a year and it moves with the same mechanic to 3 different shops. Each one tries their luck at it, after a 5, 7, 8 ECU, followed by a haltech, followed by a link g4, they finally get it running and tuned. Above wastegate pressure the car gets phantom knock, no one really knows why but his exhaust is super restrictive and he is having crank case pressure issues. Car makes approx 360 whp @ 14 psi.

He brings it home, acknowledges issues, brings it to shop in Calgary who works with well known evo tuner. The shop is tasked with giving it a bill of health, addressing issues which might come up. They determine, with a boroscope, that at some point the pistons have made contact with the valves.

Obviously, over this time it has been 4 years, PO is tired of the car, decides to part it out, I messaged him to buy the rolling chassis, granted I bring some of my spare wheels. He sells a bunch of stuff, wheels, turbo and intercooler kit as a whole, ECU, etc. Someone wants to buy the head (as it has cams, ported, etc), when he pulls the head from the car, he finds that there is no valve damage at all, no contact.. so the other shop must have seen the valve clearances and assumed it was contact marks. I actually looked at the engine myself with the head off and also didn't see any evidence of valve-piston contact. At this point, he posts pictures on FB group and an engine builder chimes in that the pistons were orientated backwards this whole time. So the clearances for the exhaust and intake on the pistons were backwards. PO still is done with the car, no change in his mind, part out proceeds.

In rolls me, I am just going to put it back to stock with this evo 6 engine I picked up, an evo 5 trans I had as a spare, and a spare t case which I have gone through and upgraded the LSD fasteners. I have an evo 7 ECU to go in, and I have a factory 6 wiring harness (spare) sitting here that I can use if the old one has been too molested.

Finally getting around to things on the 5, parts pile is secured, I don't think I need anything else for assembly.
As the engine bay had an engine explode in it, then it had the dipstick of the new engine pop out a couple times, it was filthy and not a fit home for the new engine.
I didn't get any pictures of the before as i was just embarrassed at how gross it was
Partways through cleaning
Hood before, see grossness
Some nice tin snips clearance that I found, with the 4g64 this car had, it also had a rotated turbo and honda civic half rad, as well as some beefcake intercooler. I am not sure for which of those this clearance was done for. The cuts also were left unpainted lol.
This side looks like it was done with a an actual cutting wheel but the other side was full on tin snips.
After, clean bay, fixed hood insulation. I borrowed a pressure washer from my friend, pressure washed everything, then used superclean and this little electric dishwasher brush you can see in the tin snips thing. Honestly looks like fresh paint IRL afterwards.
Fixed nice tin snips
Reposted picture, but I similarly didn't have pictures of the before of the engine because I was also embarrassed how dirty it was. Reminder that this engine was pulled from a running evo 6, compression tested well across the board, healthy running engine.
I didn't get many pictures of the process, but here is after cleaning, sanding and painting block, etc
Cleaned and painted spark plug cover
I had the old exhaust manifold covers from the 6 that were in a lot better shape, I cleaned them and painted them
I also cleaned the trans and t case with a tooth brush, and just wasn't happy with the finish of the cases anymore, so I painted those as well (great masking job).I went to Canadian Auto Paint Supply and they actually had paint for exactly this purpose.
Time for timing kit, water pump, etc.

Hooray, timed things, new water pumping things. Those keen observers will notice that the oil pump sprocket isn't lined up in this, but this was after timing was set, engine was turned over a heap of times to verify timing.
I also had noticed the timing cover warped, the plan was to put it back in place with some cardboard spacer behind it and between the cam gears and the cover,
The plan failed
New timing belt, balance shaft belt, all pulleys, hydraulic tensioner, water pump, valve cover gasket set, accessory belt (car had AC removed, would be a real pain to put it back)

Evo fam had a brand new evo 8 upper timing cover sitting on his project engine, so I bought that. These things warping must have been an issue, the old one is just a flat bit of plastic on the back, newer one has actual structure back there.
Broke this silly stud, I was lacking a bunch of tools so I brought it to local machine shop, was quoted 96-198$ to remove it, so I went to my evo friend's house and borrowed some tools. Ended up having to drill it all the way out, after easy outs gave up just waffled it inwards with a pick and hammer.
Of course was offended at the dirtyness off all the hotside components so cleaned up the castings and painted them with the same flameproof I used on the 6, seemed to work pretty well on the 6. Cleaned up the casting marks inside this manifold and opened it up a little as well.
Between coats sanded this biz
Brand new studs (other than that top left one, on the way out that one broke two of these aluminum stud extractors I was using... it came out 3/4 of a turn and then just stopped dead. Upon removal I was probably putting 60-70 ft-lbs into it trying to remove before it would bust the aluminum stud extractor, so it is plenty strong. Learning my lesson from last time I just decided to leave it as the fastener is still in good enough shape, all though that isn't ideal. When I torqued it down it worked out just fine.)
Most of the biz re-assembled
When I bought the evo 7 ECU, the seller asked what I needed it for, told him about the project and the engine and blah blah. Anyways, when he shipped the 7 ECU he also included a much nicer crank pulley (see engine), an intake manifold spacer (not gonna use), like a 1000 km old o2 sensor, a brand new ball joint, a used but good fuel pressure regulator, and a brand new wastegate actuator.
Unfortunately, this wastegate actuator seems to be from an evo 9 turbo.. so the arm is too long. Gonna make it work somehow today and bolt the engine back together so it is ready to drop in. Next step is to remove the hacked evo 5 harness (thanks tuning shops) and put in the almost unmolested 6 wiring loom (with sweet HKS SPEED DEFENCER). Once that is done then just have to remove engine from stand, bolt up trans and new clutch kit, then bolt in engine. Plug in the things, blah blah blah.

Turns out I had a couple of pictures of before engine
And I was busy this weekend so didn't get anything done, last night when the rain stopped I went and cleaned up the headlights.They had this weird, maybe clear coat, maybe 3m spray on them that was flaking off.
Before reminder

Today was the day for changing over the harness
*puke"
(get it?)
Out with the old, in with the new!
Old one out
If you look close you can see a bunch of added wires, subtracted wires, and even broken wires.
This is where the maf plug is supposed to have lived:

When I got back to work I got to working, but did a shit job taking pictures.
Check out my intercooler pump (which has since been replaced)
Replaced all the seals on trans and t-case
Replaced power steering belows (new not pictured)
Replaced front sway bar bushings
New parts!

At this point, I took forever organizing the one car garage in order to move the 6 wayyyyy back, then get the 5 partially in, at least to the flat bit. Some parts (wheels and bumpers etc) had to come into the house. Then I used a come-along to get the 5 mostly into the garage and on the flat.

And the engine and trans found their home! I originally planned on dropping the car onto the engine, but decided to go in through the top instead. By that point I had my turbo and manifold and everything already on, so I didn't know if it was going to fit back in like that! Took some finagling.
Beautiful

Had my skateboard tech come over and swap my shifter bushings
Then I bolted the transfer case in, and found I didn't have the bolts for the north-south bar, so went to my local evo breaker and found all the bolts I needed
Ran into a little wiring issue when plugging everything in, the evo 6 harness has a connector near the fuse block that has 8 wires going into it (10 spots, 2 blanks), where the factory 5 side has this 6
wire connector (8 spots 2 blanks).
Using the old 5 harness, the new 6 harness, and my meter I just made sure that all the same wires went to the same place in the ECU connectors to the 8 spot plug and re-pinned it to match what it had before. Not sure what those two extra wires do, but if I encounter issues I will track it down later.
Everything else plugged in, then I tried to find a place to mount the weird battery isolator that came with the car (which I found has no circuit breaker [on order])
Made a bracket for mounting that a little better, will picture later when it is painted.
Put the rad and fans back in, found that the lower rad hose I have doesn't seem right.

Mounted the weirdo battery isolator, I really don't know what their plan was before, I think it was just sitting in the bay.
Also mounted the intercooler and piping, found a new lower rad hose, etc.
6 oil cooler mounted up, just had to extend one bracket, flip some other ones, make a little tab.

Nothing happened. I am having some compatibility issues between the evo 5 wiring harness and the evo 6 engine harness. So, big old hickup there, I have been looking over everything for a couple days now and can't seem to figure out the issue. Project may have to be put on hold for a while if I can't figure out something soon.

So far triple checked the connectors, triple checked all the fuses, tried to bypass the battery relocate entirely, tried to boost it with the Pajero just to rule out that battery, that battery is turning the car over when I jumper the starter, connected to evoscan and ecu flash and ran the ayc pump, the abs system, checked for codes, checked each connector one by one against the 5 harness to make sure the same wires are going to the same places... Have found a couple cases where there is a wire omited here, wire there.. have honestly been considering buying a 5 engine harness haha. Anyways, not what I had hoped would happen. Cruising through the confusing ass wiring diagrams now.

WELLLL WELLL WELL. 5 days behind schedule the car is running!
I was looking over the connectors and found two wires that were swapped in the 6 harness... while painstakingly going through the two harnesses one wire at a time... Messaged to my buddy who has this awesome time attack evo 6 build (see here: https://www.instagram.com/brainpowermotorsports/?hl=en ) seriously.. check it out he is in Calgary.
Of course the pins were different sizes, and I only had some new pins for the small ones kicking around.
I was able to actually salvage the bigger one by opening it up and using my molex crimpers
And remember how I couldn't trigger the fuel pump... and not sure if I mentioned the UNKNOWN evo 5 ECU I had... TL;DR friend drives evo to other friend's house, they remove running engine and ECU, put into my other friends car (first friend is getting built engine, sold stock engine). They remove ECU, put it on the bench, put the engine into the car, put the ECU into that car. Wouldn't fire. They try a different evo 5 ECU and it fires right up.
Anyways, turns out black / yellow is for the starter signal, black / blue is for fuel pump. Swapped the pins! And the fuel pump still wouldn't prime. So at this point we are pretty sure it is the ECU.
Message guy who knows guys, find an evo 6 ECU down the street, that guy is nice enough to lend it to me and the car fires right up.
Evofam
Anyways, here are a couple vidyas: don't mind my fingers in framehttps://flic.kr/p/2gzJpHr
(dragging starter) https://flic.kr/p/2gzJYN5
It is very hard to describe the happiness and relief when it started.
Now I have TWO running evos! Only one more to go.